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When it’s time to cram for that exam, you need a playlist that can help you stay motivated without distracting you. Today’s playlist helps with a selection of classical music.

The playlist, created by classical music label Naxos, contains songs from Bach, Chopin, Beethoven, Mozart, and plenty of other classical composers. Switch it on and let it help you focus without distracting you.

Welcome to our Featured Playlist series. Each week, we’ll share a new themed playlist, embedded for your convenience! You can copy the track list to your service of choice, or listen right here. Have a sweet playlist of your own? Share it with us in the comments below!

Photo by Will Powell.

We’ve shown off one way to build your own Amazon Echo before (or more accurately, Amazon Tap because the DIY version can’t access the always-listening feature), but if you’re looking for a different approach, the Amazon GitHub page has an incredibly detailed guide to getting the Alexa voice service up and running on a Raspberry Pi.

http://lifehacker.com/build-a-raspbe...

Amazon’s guide does a much better job of walking you through the set up process for this project than the last guide we posted. It also features a full parts list so you can easily track down what you need.

Like the other DIY Echo we’ve shown off, the catch here is that because of a rule in Alexa Voice Services, your DIY Echo cannot be always listening for a trigger word. Instead, it requires a button press to start listening. In this case, it’s a little Java applet that you click to make your device start listening. Still, it’s a neat little DIY device, and I’m sure someone can figure out a way around the caveat that requires a button press.

Project: Raspberry Pi + Alexa Voice Service | GitHub

 Are you ready for a big fight over Yahoo’s control? Activist investor Starboard Value LP is really unhappy about Yahoo’s current state and wants everyone to know about it. In an open letter to shareholders, the activist hedge fund is saying that many things are broken at Yahoo right now and the investment firm could fix everything by taking over the company’s entire board. Read More

Would you like to see how a sewing machine works? How braces straighten teeth? How a key and lock works? How an ant walks? This collection of 25 GIFs will show you.

https://youtu.be/clbbMt2sl0k

Sreedharan Subramaniam shot a video of impatient waterfowl walking over to the tardy man who feeds them every morning.

 Google is increasing the visibility of security warnings inside Gmail to help protect the service’s billion-plus active users more adequately. Read More

Google may be developing a way to make live streaming on YouTube much easier. VentureBeat reports that the company is working on a new mobile app called YouTube Connect that would offer similar functionality to the likes of Periscope and Facebook Live by letting users stream online right from their phones. Streams are said to be viewable both within the app and on YouTube, with previous broadcasts saved for later playback.

A YouTube spokesperson said "We don't comment on rumor or speculation" when contacted by The Verge.

The app wouldn't be a total surprise — YouTube has attempted to capitalize on live streaming to some extent through its Creator Studio, but the gated availability isn't a good fit for the kind of off-the-cuff sharing...

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Chrome exists in a weird place between a desktop app and an operating system. While the Chrome app launcher makes sense on a Chromebook, it’s weird on other desktops. So Google’s removing it.

Google announced the change on its Chromium blog. Over the next few months, Google will start to phase out the app launcher. While it will still be included for a while, Chrome will no longer prompt new users to try it out. Eventually, it will be removed entirely.

Retiring the Chrome app launcher | Chromium Blog

 Google is planning to compete with Nuance and other voice recognition companies head on by opening up its speech recognition API to third-party developers. To attract developers, the app will be free at launch with pricing to be introduced at a later date. We’d been hearing murmurs about this service developing for weeks now. The company formally announced the service today… Read More

Welcome to the roundup of the best new Android applications, games, and live wallpapers that went live in the Play Store or were spotted by us in the previous 2 weeks or so.

Featured App

Internet Radio - PlayTime

This week's roundup is brought to you by Playtime Internet Radio from HandyApps.

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37 New And Notable Android Apps And Live Wallpapers From The Last 2 Weeks (3/8/16 - 3/22/16) was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

Android users in the UK are already enjoying many great features of Android from Google Photos to Google Play, and in the next few months Android smartphones will become even more useful with the launch of Android Pay. We’re bringing together payment networks, banks and retailers to help you pay simply and securely.

More places to tap and pay in the US
Android Pay has been growing steadily in the US with 1.5 million new registrations happening each month. You can now tap and pay in millions of physical locations, including Best Buy, Peet’s Coffee & Tea, and Rubio’s in addition to using Android Pay in more apps like Eat24, Eventbrite, and Ticketmaster. And, we’ve teamed up with Plenti to make it easier for you to earn loyalty points and redeem rewards through your Android phone at their participating retailers.

Stay tuned for more exciting details in the upcoming months!

Posted by Pali Bhat, Senior Director, Product Management

It may not be April yet, but that's not stopping Google from beginning its April Fools shenanigans. Several app developers have begun noticing a new section entitled "Reviews from Space" in their developer console, populated with a single 5-rocket-ship review from an astronaut named Alex Scott. The glowing review is sent from April 1, 2029, which might explain its premature nature: traveling back to the past has no doubt taken a toll on Mr.

Read More

Google Teases Nexus Space Smartphone With 7.2" Screen In Early April Fools Joke From Low Earth Orbit was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

Hoping to curtail Apple's head start in the region, Google has just announced that Android Pay is coming to the UK. The company's mobile wallet will roll out "in the next few months" — that's as specific as the blog post gets — with support for MasterCard and Visa credit and debit cards from partners including the Bank of Scotland, First Direct, Halifax, HSBC, Lloyds Bank, M&S Bank, MBNA, and Nationwide Building Society.

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 Google rolled out a small but useful update to its Google Photos service today, which will allow the creation of what Google calls “smarter albums.” These are photo albums automatically created on users’ behalf, following an event or a trip, and will include a curated selection of your best shots, along with details like how far you traveled, or location pins to help you… Read More

Google is making a small, but meaningful name change: it's updating the Chromecast app to be called the Google Cast app.

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HTC will unveil its next flagship phone three weeks from today, on April 12th. The new phone is believed to be called the HTC 10 and is supposed to be a continuation of the One line, featuring a similar design with improved specs.

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For the first time ever, astronomers have captured the bright flash of a shockwave blasting out from a dying star, NASA reported. The brilliant sight, known as a "shock breakout," was seen by NASA's Kepler probe — a space telescope designed to search for planets outside the Solar System. Kepler was able to observe the visible light from the shockwave, which was about 130,000,000 times brighter than the Sun.

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When you hear all the arguments in favor of bringing back airships — that they’re safe, efficient, economical — the prospect sounds appealing, even logical. But when you actually see one in person, it’s hard to think of anything apart from how fantastical and surreal they look. Case in point is the Airlander 10, a prototype airship built by UK-based Hybrid Air Vehicles (HAV) that’s 302-feet long, can carry ten metric tons of cargo, and is capable of staying aloft, uncrewed, for up to three weeks at a time. HAV has been teasing the development of the Airlander 10 for years, but earlier this week unveiled the finished craft with engines and cabin attached, looking for buyers.

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 A tiny computer intended to encourage UK kids to get programming is finally being delivered to schools, some half a year later than originally planned. Read More

https://youtu.be/Kpu8pNcANbk

Step 1: Buy a catnip banana for $3 on Amazon.

Step 2: Give the catnip banana to your cat.

Step 3. Record a video of the cat playing with it.

Step 4: Edit the video, using the song "Whats It To Ya Punk" by Audionautix (licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license)

Step 5. Upload the video to YouTube.

Step 6. Enjoy the mean-spirited YouTube comments, many of which will begin with "Step 7...."

"Everywhere they went, the attackers left behind their throwaway phones."

Buried in the New York Times story Mark poked fun at earlier for its Crypto Panic vibe, a confirmation of sorts that there's really no evidence the terrorists used crypto at all. There is lots of evidence they used throwaway burner phones to evade detection while planning mass murder. Again, no evidence encryption, none, period. This is significant because these attacks, and similar ones that followed, are at the core of an anti-encryption charm offensive by the FBI and Department of Justice, now targeted at Apple's iPhone.

Ars Technica rehashes the details of the NYT piece and then puts it plainly:

Until we have stronger evidence to the contrary, it seems likely that encryption played little or no part in the Paris terrorist attacks.

The NYT story on the Paris attackers makes just as much (if not more) sense if you replace "encryption" with "magic" pic.twitter.com/1ATUU1fzRM

— Christopher Soghoian (@csoghoian) March 20, 2016

 Just one day before the government was set to meet Apple in court to determine whether Apple could be forced to unlock an encrypted iPhone used by terrorist Syed Rizwan Farook.. the government is saying “Nevermind (for now)!” Why? Because they might’ve found their own way in. Read More

Apple went plus-size, and then it went small. The company's iPhone event on Monday brought the reintroduction of the small phone screen with the new iPhone SE. The four-inch screen isn't underrepresented on the inside, however. Its hardware is more like a mixture between the iPhone 6 and 6S. Also at the event today, the company introduced a smaller iPad Pro, as well as new bands for the Apple Watch.

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Apple says that its reason for making another small phone is simple: "For some people, they simply love smaller phones."

In a world where larger phones are king, Apple needed to give some amount of explanation for why it's making the iPhone SE, refreshing its 4-inch design in 2016 when basically no other company is making a high-end phone in this size. Apple even admits, most of its customers aren't going to buy this thing. "The vast majority of our customers prefer these larger display iPhones," says Apple VP Greg Joswiak.

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Apple's latest iOS 9.3 update will be available today. While it's only a minor release, it does have a surprising amount of features for iPads and iPhones. The biggest addition is a new Night Shift mode that shifts the color temperature of the display based on the time and location of your device. It's very similar to the popular F.lux tool, and it works by reducing the amount of blue light emitting from the screen. It's believed that exposure to bright blue light in the evening can make it harder to sleep, so you can automatically schedule Night Shift to turn on in the evenings.

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Apple has just announced a new iPad Pro, a smaller version of its iPad Pro tablet released last year. The new iPad Pro has a 9.7-inch display and weighs less than one pound. The new Pro is the same size as the iPad Air 2, which Apple says is the most popular size of iPad use.

The display on the new iPad Pro is said to be 40 percent less reflective than the iPad Air 2's screen, and Apple claims that it has the lowest reflectivity of any tablet screen. Apple also claims that the 9.7-inch display is the brightest tablet screen on the market. It also features a new technology called "True Tone Display", which measures the color temperature of ambient light and adjusts the display to match. The Pro also takes advantage of iOS 9.3's new...

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Rgraves says: "I literally had JUST built this fence to keep Stella in the yard and was admiring it..."

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LL Cool J, seeking to return to his rap music roots, has been recording a new album with pal Eminem.

Vibe tells us:

While LL Cool J’s new album has yet to get an official title or tracklist, the rapper promises that a big announcement on the production end. The rapper also spoke on his personal relationship with Eminem, who has previously heralded LL as one of his favorite MCs. He also revealed that Em gifted him with something special following his Hollywood Walk of Fame star.

“I just know that meeting Em and talking to him, he’s such a student of hip-hop. He knew all of my music,” LL said of Eminem. “He called up the radio station singing ‘Go Cut Creator Go’ and that’s a song nobody knows until you’re a diehard LL aficionado. Every time I’ve met Em, he’s had a great spirit. We’ve hung out many times. When I got my [Hollywood] star, he did something cool for me — he bought me a cool ad in a mag. He’s always given me love. I respect and appreciate what he’s done in his career.”